TITLE
Adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to submit General Plan and Ordinance amendments, as necessary to ensure internal consistency among General Plan Elements, to the California Coastal Commission for its review, approval and certification to obtain a finding of conformance with the City’s Certified Local Coastal Program. (Citywide)
DISCUSSION
Background
For nearly two years, the City of Long Beach (City) Planning Bureau (Bureau) has been working to update the General Plan Housing Element for the 2021-2029 planning period (updated Plan). State law requires each city and county in California to have a state-approved Housing Element that must be updated and adopted on a prescribed schedule every eight years. Since summer 2020, City staff have engaged the community through a variety of virtual events and opportunities to provide feedback and input that has shaped the updated Plan. On September 17, 2021, the State Housing and Community Development Department (HCD) provided an initial formal comment letter on the updated Plan, which outlined required changes to the document prior to certification by the state. Subsequent changes have been made to the updated Plan to address this feedback from HCD as well as from the general public. On October 7, 2021, the Planning Commission held a public hearing and recommended that the City Council adopt the 2021-2029 General Plan Housing Element and approve the Addendum to the previously approved programmatic Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) for the General Plan Land Use Element and Urban Design Element. On November 16, 2021, the City Council considered the proposed updated Plan including revisions made to address HCD feedback. At that time, the City Council confirmed the proposed plan and provided direction to the Development Services Department to finalize the Plan and submit it to HCD for a second round of review. The final updated Plan (Attachment A) and technical appendices (Attachment B) include additional minor changes made to address the second round of feedback from HCD (Attachment C).
The Proposed Housing Element
The updated Housing Element provides the City with a roadmap for accommodating the projected housing units needed to house existing and future City residents through 2029, and guides future decisions that impact housing. California law requires that all cities and counties submit to their legislative bodies as well as HCD a Housing Element which demonstrates that the City has sufficient zoning capacity to accommodate the 6th Cycle Housing Element Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) allocation; for the City, this allocation is approximately 26,500 new housing units by 2029. The Housing Element aims to achieve a number of housing-related goals that include: accommodating housing need in compliance with State law; increasing housing production for all income levels and household types, including special needs populations; improving housing affordability; preserving existing affordable housing; and promoting fair housing choice for all.
The Housing Element is comprised of six chapters that outline current and future housing needs of the community, housing resources, constraints to building housing, and a housing plan. The housing plan within the Housing Element builds upon and revises the goals, policies and programs of the existing Housing Element to ensure that the City can meet the housing needs of all Long Beach residents through 2029, when the plan is scheduled to be updated again as required by State law. The Housing Element is supported by six technical appendices, which provide much greater detailed data and information on the topics in the plan.
The updated Plan is in alignment with other elements of the General Plan and State law (Attachment D) and consists of policies and programs to address housing precarity and access, as well as to facilitate market-rate and affordable housing development and a site inventory of eligible sites where the projected number of housing units can be accommodated. Extensive community feedback and input informed the goals, policies, programs and other facets of the draft plan, and revisions were made to the proposed updated Plan. The staff report presented to the City Council on November 16, 2021 details community input and how it has been incorporated into the plan (Attachment E).
HCD Feedback and City Responses
State law is prescriptive regarding both the technical analysis and review steps required to successfully adopt a Housing Element Update and obtain the requisite State certification. These requirements and the first round of HCD feedback for Long Beach are described in more detail in Attachment E regarding the Housing Element. HCD concluded its second round of review of the Long Beach Housing Element update and provided a written letter containing feedback on January 18, 2022. The first round of feedback included substantive comments, as outlined in the September 17, 2021 HCD Letter (Attachment F); the second round of feedback was not substantive in nature and rather focused on technical and compliance issues. It generally resulted in more data and analyses to, for example, further analyze the distribution of potential housing units for the site inventory at all income levels across various geographies of the city and in relation to high and low resource areas and make refinements to policies and programs. All feedback has now been addressed in the revised updated Plan and appendices provided for consideration by the City Council.
City staff has updated the Housing Element for review by the City Council in response to HCD’s feedback. Upon adoption of the Housing Element by the City Council, City staff will resubmit the updated Plan to HCD for a final round of review, with the goal of achieving certification prior to the February 11, 2022 State statutory deadline. Pursuant to Assembly Bill 1398 (adopted September 2021), the City is required to have the Housing Element update both adopted by the City Council and certified by HCD prior to the February 11, 2022 statutory deadline or be subject to new requirements. Those new requirements would mandate that the City complete the rezoning of all properties on the Site Inventory by October 15, 2022, instead of the three years otherwise allotted. This more stringent requirement and deadline would pose significant challenges to City staffing resources and would hamper the City's ability to conduct community outreach related to the citywide geographic rezoning program to bring the City’s zoning into consistency with the General Plan. This new requirement is still being interpreted both by City staff and HCD. While all rezoning required to implement the Housing Element Site Inventory PlaceType scenario and accommodate the City's RHNA are consistent with the adopted 2019 Land Use Element (LUE), community engagement and technical analysis on how the zoning is tailored to the respective communities requires significant time and staffing and is a critical part of the rezoning program. In addition to the challenges described above, several federal, State, and regional funding programs consider housing element compliance as an eligibility or ranking criteria, and recent State laws create new penalties for non-compliance, including suspension of local land use control and financial penalties.
Environmental Review
The City, as Lead Agency, analyzed the proposed project to determine whether the project would result in any new significant environmental impacts or a substantial increase in the severity of impacts identified in the previously certified General Plan Land Use Element and Urban Design Element PEIR (GPLUE EIR), EIR 03-16, State Clearinghouse No. 2015051054 (Attachment G). The analysis determined that the project will not result in any new significant impacts that exceed those analyzed in the GPLUE PEIR with mitigation measures included and that none of the conditions requiring a new subsequent or supplemental environmental impact report, as stated in Section 21155 of the Public Resources Code or in Sections 15162 or 15163 of the CEQA Guidelines, are present (Attachment H). Thus, an Addendum was prepared pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15164. In addition, housing developments are subject to the GPLUE PEIR Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program (MMRP). The MMRP is designed to ensure compliance with adopted mitigation measures during project implementation. Each mitigation measure recommended in the PEIR that applies to a development proposal will be imposed on the project. Furthermore, specifications are made that identify the action required by the Applicant and the monitoring that must occur. In addition, the party responsible for verifying compliance with individual mitigation measures is identified.
The Housing Element builds off of the LUE goals, policies, and strategies, and provides a more detailed roadmap for creating sufficient capacity for needed housing in the City, including through rezoning of properties on the Housing Element Site Inventory to be rezoned in alignment with and to implement the LUE. While the LUE contemplated an anticipated buildout of 28,524 housing units, the Housing Element RHNA goal is 26,502 housing units to be focused in areas identified by the LUE.
The update to the Housing Element and rezoning of specific properties do not result in any physical improvements but rather are planning actions, consistent with the adopted LUE, intended to: comply with State law, identify a plan to meet the housing needs of the City, and implement the Zone Change Program and intent of the adopted LUE. Therefore, the Addendum is also programmatic and does not analyze project-level development that may be facilitated by the update, as the specifics of future potential projects are unknown and any assessment of impacts at this time would be speculative. Future discretionary development facilitated by implementation of the Housing Element would be subject to project-level CEQA review as appropriate at the time such projects are proposed. The proposed updated Plan implements the LUE/UDE through policies and programs, including a rezoning program, that are aligned with and help implement the approved LUE/UDE. Consequently is not anticipated to result in any new significant environmental effects nor in an increase in severity of the impacts analyzed in the 2019 Certified Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Addendum No. 1. Therefore, no major revisions to the 2019 Certified EIR and Addendum No. 1 are required, and no subsequent or supplemental EIR is required for approval of the Project and the preparation of an Addendum is the appropriate CEQA documentation.
This matter was reviewed by Assistant City Attorney Dawn McIntosh on January 13, 2022 and by Revenue Management Officer Geraldine Alejo on January 19, 2022.
Public Hearing Notice
The required public hearing notice was provided in accordance with the Long Beach Municipal Code. A public hearing notice was published in the Long Beach Press-Telegram on January 25, 2022. Notices were provided to all open City libraries and posted at City Hall. The public hearing notice was posted on the Development Services Department’s website and distributed through the City’s LinkLB email blast system. There are no notification or circulation requirements or comment periods for an addendum to a previously certified Final EIR, pursuant to CEQA.
TIMING CONSIDERATIONS
Pursuant to State Law, the City Council needs to approve the Housing Element within 120 days of the statutory deadline of October 15, 2021, although future revisions may be necessary to obtain certification from HCD.
FISCAL IMPACT
The fiscal impact of adopting this Housing Element is not known at this time. Although adoption of the Housing Element itself has no direct fiscal impact beyond the normal budgeted scope of staff duties, the Housing Element proposes several new policies and programs to be considered during the next planning cycle. Implementing certain policies and programs would require additional staff and resources. The City is obligated to demonstrate progress and formally report back each year to the State HCD on the implementation of programs of the Housing Element. Each implementation program in the Housing Element includes a list of responsible departments and the anticipated funding source(s) for the action. Future City Council action will be required prior to spending on any new programs. This recommendation has a potential future staffing impact beyond the normal budgeted scope of duties and is consistent with City Council priorities. There is no local job impact associated with this recommendation.
BODY
[Enter Body Here]
SUGGESTED ACTION
Approve recommendation.
Respectfully Submitted,
OSCAR W. ORCI
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
APPROVED:
THOMAS B. MODICA
CITY MANAGER